Heal?

It was some tv spot trying to raise awareness for Depression. The parting line stated that Depression is curable. They said I could be healed, so why do I not believe them. It is truly odd because I have often said that I believe that there is a way to be relieved of Depression. I don't know what it is or when it will come but somewhere, deep down I believe it. So when I saw this ad it puzzled me that my first instinctual reaction was to doubt it. It's like I have these two very conflicting internal responses. One full of hope, the other full of fear. It is not a pleasant mix.

So what do I make of this?

"Thanks for noticing me."

I was with some people the other day and someone called me Eeyore, you know the sad donkey from Winnie the Pooh. I guess I had just said something bemoaning myself. I attempt to avoid this and I try so very hard not to whine. Sometimes though, when all you have is a raincloud over your head you forget that other people have sunshine, and you forget that they can't see your own personal storm centered above you. The last thing I want to do is let my rain cloud overwhelm their bright day. But like I said I must have said something, I slipped up I guess. I made some offhand depressing comment about myself and was called Eeyore because of it.

Now I have been called Eeyore in the past and it never bothered me. This time it did. For awhile I couldn't figure out why. In the past it had been friends and family that called me that. I had always taken it as a term of endearment. It was their way of recognizing me as sad yet still lovable. This time, however, I was offended. And it wasn't just because I had been called a depressing stuffed ass. Although that was part of it. Even though this comment had been made in jest I couldn't help feeling that the person was also saying "Here comes this guy, a walking rain cloud." I also got the impression that the person was insinuating that I was trying to be an "Eeyore" on purpose. Now to be fair I must acknowledge that being depressed does not exactly give one a healthy mindset with which to process the interactions one has with the world. For the depressed person slights feel like insults, and insults can be devastating.

Bad or Broken?

I attended a wedding recently. One of my closest friends was getting hitched, I was a groomsman. Weddings are interesting things. There was for me, of course, the inescapable and rather cliche feeling of jealously. Seeing someone else so happy reminded me of how unhappy I was. Seeing two people so much in love that they brightened the room whenever they saw each other only made me feel darker. Oh I suppose I was happy enough for them the day of the actual wedding. In fact I remember enjoying myself more than I thought I would. It was the before and after periods that got me down.

It's not so much that I'm love sick. (Although I am and have been ever since I got dumped on the swing set by the girl I liked back in the first grade.) It was more the general fact that others were happy when I was not. I wonder if that makes me a bad person. Yet even now I'm not sure if I care whether I'm a bad person or not... Maybe that fact right there makes me a bad person. Or perhaps it just makes me a broken person... I don't know.

From here...

I'm at a point in my life and I just don't know where to go from here. It's like I'm stalled. Like some kind of engine. Inexplicably not running.